With an investigation by the Alberta Elections Commissioner under way into allegations of irregularities in the United Conservative Party’s conduct of its nomination vote in the Highwood Constituency last fall, the winning candidate published a statement Friday admitting he was convicted and fined for failing to provide a breathalyzer sample 17 years ago. In the […]
MLA asks Elections Alberta to investigate claim Jason Kenney’s UCP leadership campaign ‘deliberately hid’ donation
“The UCP denies the allegations.” We should probably get used to reading this phrase. I suspect we’re going to be seeing it quite a lot in stories about Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party during the first half of 2019. It was included in an Edmonton Journal story yesterday about allegations that in the fall of […]
AlbertaPolitics.ca: still here after 11 years writing about Canada’s most interesting provincial political scene
Today marks the 11th anniversary of the first post published on this blog, known at the time as St. Albert Diary. And thank God for that, since I’m in a post-Christmas funk with barely an idea in my head about what to write next. By the standards of the Internet, as I noted last year […]
‘Has Trudeau committed treason?’ The answer is no and the question is completely bonkers!
Donna Kennedy-Glans, by all accounts an intelligent and accomplished Alberta Conservative, recently posted and pinned a Tweet asking, “Has Trudeau committed treason?” If her intention was to grab the attention of Alberta’s chattering classes, she succeeded. If she was out for attention, though, I’m not sure she really wanted the kind that had folks wondering, […]
Peak Separatism has passed in Alberta, no thanks to Postmedia’s sly campaign to undermine the Trudeau Government
Happy Holidays! It may take a few days for its perpetrators to admit this, but Alberta has all but certainly already passed Peak Separatism. The current 2018 spasm of Alberta separatist sentiment peaked late last week, probably some time Thursday afternoon. By the time we’re all saying Happy New Year to each other, the Alberta […]
Photographer David Aaron’s ‘Edmonton Then and Now’ tops Audreys Books non-fiction bestseller list
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton for the week ended Dec. 16, 2018. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. Kingdom of the Blind – Louise Penny 2. This Wound is a World […]
Questions about UCP party votes abound: There’s smoke, but is there fire? Brian Jean’s ship was sunk, but did a kamikaze sink it?
There’s smoke! Is there fire? On Friday, StarMetro’s Edmonton and Calgary editions reported that the Office of the Elections Commissioner has hired a retired Edmonton Police detective to dig into reports Jeff Callaway’s 2017 “kamikaze” United Conservative Party leadership campaign was illegally funded. Ken Brander, who has a background investigating fraud, money laundering and organized […]
Alberta Political Traffic Report: Watch out for flaming clown cars on the right
With the announcement of the Freedom Conservative Party’s election platform yesterday, leader Derek Fildebrandt appears to have taken Alberta’s already bizarre case of Trudeau Derangement Syndrome to a new level – one that is actually deranged! To do so, Mr. Fildebrandt had to execute a rare political triple flip-flop. Well, desperate times call for desperate […]
About the cost of operating that truck convoy: Was it a political donation, and was it strictly legal?
I have questions about that massive truck protest convoy in south Edmonton yesterday, the one that tied up commuter traffic and prevented people from reaching Edmonton International Airport and just happened to take place at the same time as a visit to the neighbourhood by federal Opposition leader Andrew Scheer. Some people will think me […]
FAQ: Perfesser Dave returns after a long absence to explain Alberta Politics to the Rest of Canada
Some stories are just too confusing for ordinary bloggers to explain. That’s when we turn to the expert knowledge offered by distinguished academics such as Perfesser Dave, The Answer Guy™, Canada’s No. 1 expert on Alberta politics. As a result of his years of studying Alberta politics, Perfesser Dave knows practically everything there is to […]
Athabasca University and its faculty approach an impasse in bargaining; the province drops a hint of what might be next
Is Alberta’s NDP Government getting ready to bring some serious pressure to bear if that’s what it takes to get a contract agreement between Athabasca University’s administration and its faculty association? If I’m right about the meaning of changes to the Athabasca University Regulation ordered by the provincial cabinet last week, it would be a […]
With friends like these … it’s sure depressing to compare Canada in 1979 to the U.S. in 2018
Canadians of a certain vintage will clearly remember “the Canadian Caper,” that dangerous moment in 1979 when our diplomats put their lives on the line to smuggle six of their American colleagues out of revolutionary Iran. Given the situation in Iran – revolutionaries storming the U.S. Embassy, diplomats held hostage, the revolutionary government unable to […]